


Red-Maned Lion

by terri_testing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4901659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terri_testing/pseuds/terri_testing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hoodoo is all the energy and attention you bring to what you do.  Everything you do.  The work of your hands, done with all your attention, becomes a container full of energy that you can transfer to someone else.  Baking bread is a hoodoo work. So’s putting in a garden.  Or fixing an amplifier, or teaching someone else to.  If you do it right, with your whole head, and an awareness of where it came from, and where it’s going when it leaves you.  The process it’s part of.  And you have to be concentrating on energy, not money….</p>
<p>“If you don’t do it for love, or because you think it needs doing, get out and let someone else do it.  If nobody else does it, maybe that means it shouldn’t be done….</p>
<p>“I’ll help.  Out of love, and because it needs doing.” </p>
<p>Emma Bull, Bone Dance</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>He offered only the work of his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red-Maned Lion

“Handmade,” sneered Tuney. “Couldn’t afford a _real_ card, could you, Snape?”

Severus went red. No, he couldn’t. He’d never even known that giving cards inscribed with birthday blessings was a Muggle custom, not until three weeks ago, when his Da’s mail had included two envelopes addressed to _him_.

When he’d finally understood what they were supposed to be, Severus had haunted the display in the store, trying to make out what wit or art could make such scraps of paper worth either receiving or sending. What the point was. Since actual, magical, well- wishes couldn’t be involved.

He’d done his utmost to imitate what he’d considered the best of the Muggle models, but obviously he had failed.

Or the fact that he hadn’t purchased it made it an automatic failure; that was quite possible too.

Severus lowered his head, letting his hair sweep forward to hide his burning face.

But then Mrs. Evans laughed and said, “Petunia, sometimes handmade is better. It shows that someone cares enough to put their own time and effort into the gift. That basket of paper flowers you and Lily made for my birthday three years ago is still on my dressing table. The lovely florist arrangement you two bought for me last June is long gone. Not that I didn’t love it too, but notice that it’s your homemade gift that I still treasure.”

Mrs. Evans smiled at Severus, who raised his head enough to smile back hesitantly. He let his eyes slide over, very cautiously, to check on Lily’s reaction to his gift.

She was beaming at his card. And then she beamed at him.

*

Even though he’d decided to make the gift seem to come from the headmaster, the Potters might still test it for magical residue. Indeed, they ought to. Given the circumstances, the possibility of an enemy trying to smuggle a cursed object or a tracer into their home under the guise of a gift should not be lightly dismissed.

There must be nothing to find, not for anyone testing for hidden charms or jinxes or Dark enchantments.

There would be nothing to find.

Only the work of his hands.

*

It took him two months to learn to use a needle deftly enough to attain a result that could satisfy him. Then duplicating the template Muggle toy was much harder than he had anticipated. And it took weeks to find the exact shade of red yarn he wanted for the mane.

That was all right, though.

Brewing Felix Felicis took six months. He would barely complete the potion in time. He had ample time to work on making its carrier.

*

Surely a stuffed lion, red and gold, must be an acceptable gift for the child of two Gryffindors?

He told himself that each time he struggled with the project.

Yet what good could it even do? The luck draught was meant to be ingested, not applied topically—how could a baby, dragging a potion-infused toy about, absorb enough to make any difference at all?

But yet it might.

And he had to try everything he could think of, however futile. Not just do what the headmaster demanded.

*

He sewed in two Galleons, blank gold, for the lion’s eyes.

Symbolism was important in magical craftings, particularly in such _ad hoc_ efforts as this. These eyes would symbolize that the child was valued above treasure.

Well.

By its parents, presumably.

Not by him, of course.

 

He sewed neat secants around the coins, fastening them firmly into place. It would have been much easier, and infinitely faster, to have Transfigured the coins into gold buttons and attached them.

But that would have spoiled the symbolism. And left magical traces.

And, had he done that, then his work could have been undone equally quickly with another wand-wave.

Now, not.

Only the work of other hands could blind these watchful gold eyes.

*

Magical forgery was tricky. There were so many spells to determine whether words had really been penned by who purported to do so. Gringotts employed over a dozen charms to authenticate some documents.

Most people, however, would only check the signature, for authenticity and lack of duress.

The more cautious would further verify that the person signing had truly written the document to which it was appended.

Only, the common spell to test for that merely determined whether the same person had written every word on a document, from opening to signature. Then, if the signature had been verified as authentic, so too must the document be.

The common spell didn’t check whether individual words might have been lifted from other documents.

Only whether all words present on a parchment were penned by the same hand, and (the more advanced spells) whether the hand had been consenting.

*

_Dear Mr. Snape,_

_I hope that you will consider accepting a position other than that for which you originally applied…_

_It is necessary…_

_In token of which…_

_…some trivial concerns…_

_Sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster_

*

A Fawkes-delivered note, unaddressed, unsigned:

_You desired me to inform you…_

_James and Lily believe…_

_the best interests of their child…_

_No thanks to...._

*

This entire endeavor was pointless. The Felix Felicis potion wasn’t designed to be absorbed through the skin, and Severus had never made any pretence of caring about the Potter brat’s fate.

 

_“They can die, as long as you have what you want?”_

 

Shrinking at the icy contempt in the question. Acknowledging its justice.

It was true. They could, for all he cared.

*

Only….

Impatiently waiting at the apothecary’s as another customer in the queue haggled, observing the witch shake one hand vehemently in the clerk’s face while the other unconsciously caressed the bundle sleeping in her sling….

At the Malfoy heir’s half-year party, seeing the immaculate Narcissa Black draped with a red-faced creature emitting the most appalling noises. She’d seemed to find her new (and loud) accessory more absorbing even than her own appearance, for a wonder. Snape had managed neither to wince as he’d approached to tender his formal felicitations, nor to give way to his impulse to congratulate the fond parents on the apparent strength of the thing’s lungs.,,,

Hidden in the long shadows cast by the low late-January sun, watching a shabby dark woman swaying slightly on a swing ( _their_ swing, _her_ swing) propping a baby on her lap. The woman’s strained face softened when the child batted her face and laughed.

 

That afternoon, he’d started to brew.

It wasn’t as though birthday well-wishes from him would still have been accepted.

Whether purchased or handmade.

So he had to find something else to give her.

*

It was all pointless anyway, so why not go through with it?

_“Dear James and Lily,_

_I hope that you will accept this trivial token for your child._

_No thanks are necessary or desired._

_Sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore”_

 

He chose a garish purple ribbon to tie the parchment around the lion’s neck. He didn’t imagine that his forgery had quite achieved Dumbledore’s tone, but he’d done the best he could with the resources at hand.

He hesitated a last moment in the Owlery. Only staff would have access in the summer, and his appointment had not yet been announced. If they bothered to check, the use of a Hogwarts owl should be a convincing touch.

There was a second note, to the headmaster, requesting that Dumbledore not disavow a gift being sent to the Potters in his name.

The Potters might still be too suspicious to accept any gift at all, or the headmaster might refuse Snape’s request.

It all would fall apart if they determined the gift’s source to have been feigned.

That it had been offered by him.

*

It was all pointless anyway. So why not go through with it?

 

If she—if they—ultimately rejected his gift, then they did. It’s not like it could even make a difference; Felix wasn’t meant for topical application.

But he had done what he could.

 

Severus told the owl, “Harry James Potter.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> We saw in canon (OotP) that although Avada Kedavra may effortlessly penetrate the strongest possible magical shield, it is easily blocked/reflected by solid objects (the golden statue in the Atrium). When I thought about the possibility that Tom’s AK might have rebounded in his face because it had bounced off something behind a fortunately-fallen-on-his-arse baby Harry, it occurred to me that a suitable contender for the role (eminently suitable for puncturing Tom’s self-importance) would be the button eye on a stuffed animal.
> 
> And then I liked the idea too much to leave it.
> 
> Severus, of course, had no experience with toddlers, so he didn’t know that they inevitably chew on their toys.


End file.
